GIOVANNI BATTISTA PITTONI (Venice, 1687 - 1767) Nativity Oil on canvas, cm 95X75 Pittoni was one of the most important Venetian artists of his time. Beginning with a vague Jordanian taste, he reveals at an early stage an approximation to the manner of Piazzetta, perceptible in the Supplizio di San Tomaso in the Venetian church of San Stae. It was, however, the robust modelling of Sebastiano Ricci and the luminous colour of Giambattista Tiepolo that marked his stylistic trait, which Pallucchini defined in 1951 as: 'that bursting Pittonian cheerfulness: boldly lively and minute at the same time, which, without reaching a profound figurative emotion, has its own pictorial coherence'. The scholar, in fact, traced the increasingly agitated, melodramatic and theatrical pictorial mimicry, which is based on the most subtle physiognomic motions, fleeting profiles and snapping hands in a tight game, capable of creating a plastic and narrative sense also by virtue of continuous drawing experimentation. And how exemplary, following the thoughts of Pallucchini, who in turn paraphrased Zanetti when he described Pittoni as having 'an original style of his own, full of picturesque quirks, gentility and amenity', is the painting under examination, whose maturity suggests a date of execution at the end of the fourth decade by virtue of an exhibited chromatic and especially atmospheric wisdom, the same that we find for example in the Nativity with God the Father at the National Gallery in London (oil on canvas, 222.7x153.5 cm), but in our case more touching thanks to the more intimate and cosy measures. Finally, it is worth noting Pittoni's attention to drawing in the detailed conception of poses and gestures, as can be seen in the sheets dedicated to studies of hands holding drapery (cf. Cini Photo Library, n. 838233; 287008: A. Binion, I disegni di Giambattista Pittoni, Florence 1983, p. 47: Craievich 2005, p. 207, cat. 314. Cini Photo Library, no. 285912; p. 155, cat. 224), which reflect the Virgin's gestures well and which Pallucchini (1945) considered preparatory for the Virgin's hand in the second group of Nativity scenes according to Goering's classification (1934), which refers to the examples in the National Gallery in London and the Accademia dei Concordi in Rovigo (Zava Boccazzi 1979). Reference bibliography: A.M. Zanetti, Della pittura veneziana e delle opere pubbliche de' veneziani maestri. Libri V, Venice 1771, pp. 460-462 R. Pallucchini, I disegni di Giambattista Pittoni, Padua 1945, p. 83, cat. 64 E. Martini, La pittura veneziana del Settecento, Venice 1964, p. 154 F. Zava Boccazzi, Pittoni, Venice 1978, ad vocem R. Pallucchini, La pittura nel Veneto. Il Settecento, I, Milan 1995, pp. 520-544 A. Craievich, in I disegni del Professore. La raccolta Giuseppe Fiocco della Fondazione Giorgio Cini, exhibition catalogue edited by G. Pavanello, Venice 2005, ad vocem